Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Our Attic

Before having our roof repaired and to verify that no animals were currently living in our attic, we decided to venture back up there and take a look. We had been up in December when we had our energy audit, but not since.

The attic is in a T shape, with ceiling heights at the peak of the roofline of around 7.5 ft. There’s no sign of leaks, but there have been animals in our attic in the past. We found a squirrel carcass in the small dormer, which was probably a year or two old, and another that was probably 20 years old. Thankfully nothing is living in there now, except for some starlings living in our soffits (which aren’t open to our attic).

The electrical you can see in the picture is all new. I guess the electricians decided they didn’t need to be very neat with their work up there and there’s at least 4 junction boxes (which are allowed in attics as long as they’re accessible. There might be some old knob and tube wiring you can see, but it’s all inactive.

Here’s a shot of me climbing into the small dormer where we found the dead squirrel:

After our roof is completely repaired, we’ll be having people come in to add 15-17” of insulation to bring the attic of up to R50. They will also be turning my self-made hatch (really a large hole) into a proper sealed hatch. The insulation you see here in the pictures of either old mineral wool, or old cellulose. It’s about 2 inches thick in the best areas, so about R2-R5.